Red Gold - 3. Chapter 3 - First Steps

The next morning, early Gabrielle was on the telephone to her mother, or the woman she had always thought of as her mother who, through many tears and apologetic explanations admitted that she was not of her blood but had been adopted when she was a tiny child. She had been so introvert and strange that her ‘parents’ had not wished to add to her feelings of estrangement by telling her that she was not truly theirs and so had put off the time of telling until, it had never come.

Putting down the telephone Gabrielle felt at the same time empty and more complete that she ever had before. Something was stirring within her, a lot of things made sense now. For a time she pottered listlessly around the house and then she resolved to abandon her classes for the day and to go to the wood in the hope that she might see….. Ca’el. Was that his name at last?

As she opened the front door something caught her eye, something small and black lying on the pavement near the front step. Curious she stooped to look closer and then recoiled to see that it was a crow with its head ripped off. The experience sparked a memory of more than fourteen years earlier; a boy crouching in the grass; a tiny bundle of feather and bone.

Unsettled Gabrielle hurried away from the house and had not gone far before another headless corpse caught her eye. By the time she reached the wood she had counted six and was beginning to become frightened. Hesitating on the main path she wondered whether it had been a good idea after all to come here. Looking around uneasily she thought she saw something moving among the trees. It was not the flash of red gold she had been looking for but a flicker of darkness deeper than the shadows in which it lurked.

Her heart pounding Gabrielle turned and began to walk back along the path towards civilisation. As she walked the shadow kept pace in the cover of the trees. It was not so much what it did as how it felt that frightened her and she walked faster and faster until she was running headlong, heedless. Rounding a bend in the road she failed to notice someone hurrying along almost as fast in the other direction also distracted by the movements in the wood.

Before she realised what was happening Gabrielle had run headlong into a tall, dark figure who instinctively flung their arms around her to steady them both. Panicked Gabrielle kicked and fought but the harder she struggled the more firmly she was held until she could no longer move. When she was still an amused voice whispered into her hair, held firmly against his broad chest.

“Be still Gabrielle. It is I, you are safe.”

Immediately she stopped struggling and looked up into a familiar face, the green eyes smiling at her confusion.

“Did you see them?”

“Yes. I am sorry that you were exposed to risk. I should have been watching you but…. I had… other business.”

“Do you mean the birds?”

“You have seen them?”

“Yes. What do they mean?”

“Trouble Gabrielle. But for now, you are safe.”

“Will you let me go now?”

“As you wish.” With a slight mocking bow he released her and stepped back.

Today he was dressed all in black, the long coat fitting closely over his broad shoulders and narrow waist, flaring over his hips to hide the bulge of the ever present knife. It made his long hair flare like a super nova around his head and over his shoulders.

Gabrielle realised with something of a shock that he was incredibly attractive and the thought made her blush and turn suddenly shy.

“There is something I would like to show you. Will you come with me?”

“Where?”

“In the woods.”

“You are asking me to go into the woods with you? With those things out there? Is it safe?”

“You are always safe with me.”

“Are you sure?”

He smiled at the layers of meaning. “Absolutely.”

Gabrielle hesitated when he held out his hand to her and it took the mocking smile in the cool green eyes to jolt her out of herself. Impatient with herself she took the hand and suddenly they were running. This time, as they raced through the trees, leaping roots and dodging branches, there was no fear, no sense of dread or doom, only laughter and breathless excitement.

Gabrielle was not unfit, she played racket sport when she could and prided herself on the fact that she could run farther and faster than any of her friends. But he was stronger, faster, fitter and fleeter than anyone she had ever met and soon she was gasping for breath and stumbling as she ran.

“Stop. I…… I can’t keep up. I… I have to…. to stop for a minute.”

“Almost there.”

“No…. I… wait.”

Pulling away from him she staggered against a tree, her breath tearing her chest as she gasped. When she looked up he was gone.

“Wait….wait for me.”

Pushing away from the tree she staggered on desperately pushing aside branches, straining for a glimpse of red gold.

Suddenly the air was filled with music, pure and sweet. A lilting breathy flutelike sound that seemed to call to her and draw her onwards until, breaking out of the trees she found herself on the banks of a stream, completely surrounded by the woods on all sides. Above her a series of waterfalls tumbled over an uneven rocky bed and below her the ground sloped sharply downwards taking the river with it.

Immediately before her was a pool, formed where the river caught on a lip of rock before it plunged downwards towards the plain far below. At the edge of the pool there were many large boulders and Ca’el was perched on one with a reed flute to his lips, his green eyes intense in the verdant shadows.

Gabrielle was drawn closer until she was standing over him, her body casting a shadow onto his face. He continued to play, his head to one side, looking up at her sideways though long golden lashes and a glittering curtain of hair. All around the sounds of the forest ceased and nature herself held her breath listening to haunting melody played with expert fingers that seemed to flow across the holes bringing forth sounds that seemed impossible for such a simple instrument.

After a time he laid aside the flute and continued the melody with his voice, singing softly in a language that Gabrielle had never heard before but which seemed somehow familiar to her. She sank down onto the grass and gazed up into his face, entranced. Soon, lost in the melody he closed his eyes and seemed to be scarcely aware that she was there.

When, at last, the last note faded into silence there was a pause when the world continued to hold its breath and then the normal sounds of the forest and river returned. The song of the birds, the babbling of the water, the whispering of the trees all sounded harsh and discordant after the song.

“It was you.” Opening his eyes he looked at her with a strangely empty look as though he was a long way away and barely aware that she was there. “All these years…. it was you singing to me in the night. It was you last night.”

Blinking, his eyes slowly filled with life again and sparkled in the dim light. “Yes.”

“You made me dream.”

“No. I merely…. opened a door, it was always your choice to step through.”

“A door to where?”

“That is for you to remember Gabrielle, not for me to tell you.”

“Will you ever stop talking in riddles?”

“Will you ever learn to accept and not to demand?”

“Will you tell me who you are?”

“I have told you. I am your protector. I am here to serve you and to keep you safe. Nothing more.”

“Will you tell me your name?”

“When you remember yours.”

“Riddles! Riddles! Riddles! That’s all I ever get from you. Why do you bother? Why do you even come to me?”

“I have never come to you, not until now. It has always been you who have come to me. You have been searching, always, and at times you have found me. But I have never searched for you. I have always known where you are. The fact that we are here, now indicates that the time for remembering is drawing close, the time of awakening is at hand. You will get your answers Gabrielle, and more, much more.”

“Like those shadows? And the headless birds?”

“Yes.”

“And what if I choose not to? What if I decide to just walk away? I don’t have to be dragged into this… whatever it is.”

“You cannot choose not to be yourself. Remembering or not remembering will not change that.”

“But I can choose not to follow you. I can choose to turn my back. I can choose to walk away.”

“Can you?” His eyes were intense again. Intensely green, intensely sad, intensely challenging and intensely strange.

“I have choices. I can choose not to take part in this…. game of yours.”

“It is not a game Gabrielle, and it is not of my making.”

“No, I know that. I have seen. But you are playing games with me now. You are hiding from me, making me chase you, taunting me with riddles and playing with me.”

He grinned. “I cannot deny.” He shrugged. “It is my way.”

“And that makes it alright? You are rude and childish and insufferable and….. and…. and it’s alright because it’s your way?”

He shrugged again. “I can be no more and no less than that which I am. And so with you.”

“Tell me your name.”

“Earn it.” the smile had slipped from his face and he was suddenly dark, frowning with open challenge.

“I already have, Ca’el.” She was unreasonably triumphant to see his eyes widen, startled to glance around him uneasily, delighted to find that beneath his mask he was as uncertain and frightened as she was.

“Hush Gabrielle. Do not speak it here. There are those who would use it.”

“Use it? For what? To call you? What’s the point? You have already said you wouldn’t come. Why can’t I use your name Ca’el. It is a strange name, like you, but I like the way it sounds when I say it. Ca’el.”

He was alarmed now. Leaping to his feet he advanced on her shaking his head. “No, Gabrielle. This is why I could not tell you. Please. If you have remembered my name then you have remembered the circumstances in which we came here. I believed that when this was so you would realise the danger we are in and be more reasonable. Do not speak my name Gabrielle, not unless you are very certain there is no one who can hear. If you give it to Him, to the Sorcerer, he will use it to hurt me. Do not betray me Gabrielle, not yet.”

“I won’t betray you.”

“Then don’t speak my name.”

“I don’t understand.”

Clearly spooked he looked around uncomfortably. “Alright. I will take you somewhere safe, somewhere we can speak and I will do my best to explain. But please, until then, be careful.”

“But you call me by my name all the time.”

“Have you not worked out why?”

Gabrielle frowned and thought back to the dream, an echo of another name whispering in her head. “Of course. Because it isn’t really my name. That’s right, isn’t it? Gabrielle is the name my mother…. my adoptive mother… gave me. My name is Sou Shan.”

“Hush. Will you please…..? Come, come now, before disaster strikes. Hurry, follow me.”

This time there was no playfulness. When he grabbed her wrist it was with a grip of iron and he half dragged her through the trees, more slowly, more carefully and somehow more heedlessly, as though his mind were elsewhere.

“Wait, don’t go so fast. You are hurting me.” He turned to look at her and she shrank from the look in his eyes.

They were almost back on the path when it happened. It seemed as though all of a sudden something that had been the shadow of a tree suddenly became and man, or something that looked like a man, and then there was another man, and another. Spinning Gabrielle saw more behind her.

Releasing her hand Ca’el dropped to a crouch and hissed to her. “They are all around. I will make a gap, you must break through and run for the road. They will not follow you into the light.”

“What about you?”

“It is my purpose to protect you.”

“I won’t leave you here.”

“You will leave or you will die. If you stay I will have to protect you and there is a chance I will die too. If you run I will only have to protect myself and there is a chance I will survive.”

“Shit. Shit shit shit.”

“Now.”

In a blur of movement he sprang, drawing his knife and somehow a man fell and there was a clear space before her into which she ran and kept running, sobbing, stumbling, falling, pushing onwards heedless, never looking back. And then she was on the path and pounding towards the university buildings until she was on the brow of the well cut grassy slope that led down to the entrance of the main building.

In the near distance she could hear the sound of voices calling and chatting as students walked to and from the main entrance, saw the sparkling spray of fountains, smelled the coffee from the coffee shop across the way. There were a lot of people around, sitting in the seats outside the café, lying back on the grass in the sun, walking, talking, laughing.

Gasping she bent double struggling to regain her breath, her equilibrium. Willing her racing heart to slow but it didn’t, it couldn’t, not even after her breath returned. Standing immobile, ignoring the life that went on behind her, she could not take her eyes off the road, but it remained empty.

The minutes stretched on, infinity in each moment, an agony of indecision paralysing her. Should she go back? Should she go on? She could not stay here. Watching, waiting, fearing. And then he came. His coat, open, flapped around him like the wings of a great black bird, his hair streaming behind him like the tail of a comet he did not so much run as fly over the ground and in an instant he was there, catching round her waist, spinning her and falling, laughing to roll down the hill in a tangle of arms legs and hair.

When they hit the bottom Gabrielle was winded for a moment and lay on her back staring up as he sat, hands on knees, breathing hard for the first time since she had known him. He was looking at her sideways thorough his hair in a gesture that was becoming familiar to her, his eyes blazing, exhilarated.

“Are you alright?”

“It’s me who should be asking that. Did you….. I mean did you…. all of them?”

“No, there were too many. Just enough.”

“Are you hurt?”

He shook his head, his eyes shining. “Not at all.”

“You scared me.”

“It wasn’t me that was scary.”

“Oh yet it was.”

He tilted his head to one side, a slight frown between his brows, his eyes regarding her, carefully neutral. Then he smiled and rose to his feet, unfolding like a cat. Standing over her he held out his hand and, laughing she took it and jumped to her feet. People were looking at them, not just because of their unconventional arrival.

Gabrielle realised very quickly that Ca’el caused a stir wherever he went simply by being who he was. It wasn’t just the way he looked it was the way he held himself, the way he walked, the sheer presence he exuded, a wildness that repelled some, attracted others but always made an impression.

“Let’s have coffee.”

“I thought you were going to take me somewhere to talk.”

“I will, I promise, but it’s a beautiful day and I have recently discovered coffee and thought it would be pleasant to sit in the sun and drink with you.”

“I’d rather a beer.”

“What is beer?”

“Huh?”

“Is it like coffee? My sister is not too impressed with this place and believes that my liking for coffee will strike disaster when we return home, where there is none. Perhaps she will be less concerned if I diversify.”

“Have you never tried beer?”

“No. Should I have?”

“I think, perhaps you should come with me.”